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Canada’s long-form census is back for 2016

A day after taking office, the Liberal government announced the 61-question long census form will be restored for 2016 census

There was no long-form for the last census in 2011, but the new Liberal government is bringing it back for the 2016 census. (Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Canada's Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister, Navdeep Bains holds a copy of a long-form census on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. The long form, abandoned by the Conservatives, is being reinstated for the 2016 census. (CHRIS WATTIE / REUTERS)

Just a day after taking office, the Liberal government announced Thursday that the mandatory long-form census — axed by the Conservatives in 2010 — will be reinstated for the 2016 census.

“Today, Canadians are reclaiming their right to accurate and more reliable information,” said Navdeep Bains, the newly named minister of Innovation, Science and Development.

With the next census, communities will “once again have access to high-quality data they require,” said Bains, the MP for Mississauga-Malton.

He portrayed the decision as the first step of the Liberals’ commitment to “open and fair government.”

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The announcement rolls back one controversial decision by Conservatives and one that prompted critics to charge that the Stephen Harper government was turning its back on fact-based decision-making.

There was no long-form for the last census in 2011, but the new Liberal government is bringing it back for the 2016 census. (Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Canada's Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister, Navdeep Bains holds a copy of a long-form census on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. The long form, abandoned by the Conservatives, is being reinstated for the 2016 census. (CHRIS WATTIE / REUTERS)

During the census — done every five years — most Canadian households get an eight-question form. However, a longer, more detailed, 61-question form was distributed to one-in-five households.

With questions on everything from income, cultural heritage, education, work habits, even details of where people live, it gave researchers a rich source of data to build an understanding of Canadian society.

The data was used in myriad ways, planning everything from public health to transit and rural development.

“The use is almost never-ending,” Ian McKinnon, chairperson of the National Statistics Council, the senior advisory body to the chief statistician at Statistics Canada told the Star.

Yet in 2010 that lengthy census form was scrapped by the Conservatives, who said its questions were intrusive, even though the data is kept confidential.

The government was unmoved by the protests and warnings that the lack of detailed data would harm everything from urban planning to business forecasts.

The Conservatives replaced the long-form census with a voluntary “National Household Survey” for the 2011 census. A poor response rate in some geographic areas and among some segments of society has lead to problems with the data.

And Bains said Thursday that the voluntary survey actually cost an estimated $22 million more than the mandatory form it replaced, even though it delivered poorer results.

That’s in part because the survey went to more households — one-in-three.

“Making it mandatory will actually be less expensive and it’ll be on budget and on time,” Bains said.

Bains was reluctant to discuss the penalties for those who fail to fill out the mandatory forms, saying only “the law is the law.”

McKinnon said the data produced by the mandatory long form census is “more robust” than the voluntary survey.

While he said Statistics Canada worked “extraordinarily hard” to make the survey data “as useful as possible” it was no longer as trusted as the benchmark for the Canadian statistical system.

Conservative MP Tony Clement, who was the minister in charge of Statistics Canada at the time of the 2010 change, appeared to express some regret for the move Thursday.

“Looking back on it, I would say that it would have been better to have a much broader review of data collection in our country and come up with a better system,” Clement said.

“Other countries are moving away from traditional census taking and moving towards the data collection on a broader scale to get the data that is necessary for researchers, for businesses and academics,” he said.

“That discussion never really happened and I think that it should happen at some point,” he said.

Reaction to the announcement was swift as a variety of organizations cheered the news that the long-form census was returning.

“We are now back on track to knowing who we are, in all our diversity,” Stephen Toope, president of the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, said in a statement.

With files from Joanna Smith

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